Capital and operating expenses for data centers have become an increasing part of IT organizations' budgets over time. Data centers are complex facilities including rows of data storage server racks. Each server rack has a footprint which consumes real estate, power, and cooling resources. With all the power, cooling, and cabling infrastructure, data centers are expensive facilities to operate. Thus, each server rack's footprint should be used efficiently in order to reduce costs and maximize profit. The more storage devices housed within a server rack, the more efficient the use of the footprint. However, server racks must be designed to provide adequate cooling to the storage devices, which becomes more difficult as the density of the storage devices increases. While existing rack designs are functional, there is still a need for higher density storage server designs that also provide adequate cooling to the storage devices.
The headings provided herein are for convenience only and do not necessarily affect the scope or meaning of the claimed embodiments. Further, the drawings have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be expanded or reduced to help improve the understanding of the embodiments. Moreover, while the disclosed technology is amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are described in detail below. The intention, however, is not to limit the embodiments described. On the contrary, the embodiments are intended to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope of the embodiments as defined by the appended claims.